NFL Flag Football May Be a Kid's Game, But ESPN Gives It the Pro Treatment The league's new kinder, gentler entry features plenty of audio, MindFly camera close-ups By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Friday, July 19, 2024 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
In Haribo's football-themed gummi commercial, hulking NFL wide receivers Donald Driver and Marquez Valdes-Scantling wax blissful over the chewy treats in the squeaky voices of little kids in a candy store. This week, ESPN is working on presenting its own version of that theme for the NFL's first outing of its kid-centric NFL Flag Football initiative. Production of the games, scheduled to take place July 19-21 at the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Tom Benson Stadium in Canton, OH, will put the no-contact sport on a par with an actual NFL game, complete with tons of microphones and up-close video from MindFly AI BodyCams on two game officials.
The network will be broadcasting from Game Creek Video Spirit A and B units (a regular presence on the college-football circuit). It will be a full-production show, airing 18 Flag Football games over three days across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN+, NFL Network, NFL+, YouTube, Disney Channel, and Disney+. The broadcaster will have a crew of 170 production and operations staffers onsite, with others located in at its Bristol, CT, facility.
Kid Stuff But as full-on as the production aims to be, there is another overriding emphasis.
A1 Steve Yoder: It's about keeping it a kid's game but taking it to a professional broadcast-sports level.
We want to keep it fun, says A1 Steve Yoder, who will alternate game-mixing duties on the first two days with audio guarantee Tad Wymer, who will also be managing the RTS ADAM comms system. It's about keeping it a kid's game but taking it to a professional broadcast-sports level. We're going to have mics on coaches and things like that, so we can get inside the game.
Although the players will not be wired for sound - NFL Flag athletes are girls and boys age 5-17 - the coaches will be miked. Referees will be wearing MindFly AI BodyCams, described as smaller than a credit card and fitted with integrated microphones mounted inside a vest. The camera, battery, and transmitter are protected by D30 Decell padding to prevent injury to the wearer.
In addition, the production will have fixed Audio-Technica AT835 shotguns, movable parabolic microphones with DPA 4061 capsules held by A2s along the sidelines, microphones mounted on handheld RF cams and a Steadicam, and Shure VP88 stereo crowd-capture mics placed at the equivalent of a standard NFL playing field. ( Equivalent because, at 70 yards long and 30 yards wide with two 10-yard end zones, the Flag Football field is about two-thirds the size of a typical 100- x 53.3-yard NFL field). That, says Yoder, will make field-effects sound capture easier.
You're not going to get the sounds that you get from adults on the field, he explains, but the field's so much smaller that we can isolate the sounds a lot better. The smaller the field gets, the more we can pick and choose the sounds and decide what it is we want to hear.
Tricky Sound Capture Microphone choice is important. With no contact crashes taking place on the field and no marching bands to fill out the soundscape, most of the sound will come from the kids themselves as they play. That does change Yoder's frequency strategy a bit.
Because there won't be pad hits, what we're going to do is use the [parabolics] to pick up the kids' voices. We're also going to have to round out the sound a lot more, he explains, noting that the choice of the DPA microphone in the parabs helps add high-end crispness to the overall sound. We won't peak certain [frequencies] like you do to have pad hits and helmet hits. We'll tweak [upper frequencies] a bit more so that you clearly hear the kids screaming to each other and yelling and high-fiving and all that stuff.
Officials Wired for Video and Sound The inaugural NFL Flag Football production, part of the league's pivot to de-emphasize football's physical ferocity, will feature another relatively recent innovation as well. The MindFly BodyCam is an AI-stabilized POV camera with a built-in microphone and was also deployed by ESPN for United Football League (including the UFL Conference Championship), for one NHL Stanley Cup pregame skate, and on the first-base umpire for the College World Series. The system transmits in the 5 GHz or 6 GHz Wi-Fi spectrum, locating two receivers on the field and one at the midfield camera position in the stands.
For Flag Football, the league has authorized two MindFly Referee Cams. The RF chest-mount cams will be worn by a back judge and a side judge, giving viewers the perspective on what officials see and hear in real time.
In addition, the production's 12 total cameras will include Drone Cam, shooting live game action starting on Saturday; the Goodyear Blimp, providing aerial coverage also beginning on Saturday; and an RF handheld covering the sidelines.
MindFly can deliver the feed to the cloud, but ESPN is taking a baseband 1080p/59.94 feed onsite. Two camera feeds are transmitted to the broadcaster's Bristol facility as part of its REMI mux. MindFly is used primarily for replays and bumps, but the production team could take it live at any point.
Setup is good, transmission has been solid, the stabilization is outstanding, [the] pictures are good, and the wearability is pretty much the best, opines ESPN VP, Production Phil Orlins of the MindFly cam, adding that its integration into a vest makes its wearers more approachable, which can translate into engagement on screen. Take 10 minutes to cut the hole in the jersey and put the camera through and forget you're wearing it. I
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiativ...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Docume...
02/07/2026
Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables
Simon Ubsdell July 1, 2026
0 Comments
An overview of Autograph's ridiculously powerful tables...
02/07/2026
Boston Conservatory's Soir e Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships The event achieved 127 percent of its fundraising goal in an evening celebrating ...
NFL Flag Football May Be a Kid's Game, But ESPN Gives It the Pro Treatment The league's new kinder, gentler entry features plenty of audio, MindFly camera close-ups By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
